Councilman Jim Meisner: Finding the next city administrator

Posted:
03/11/2016 08:54:20 AM MST

Jim Meisner

Cañon City Council is currently in the process of searching for and selecting a new city administrator. This is a council responsibility, versus a task for our human resources department. Knowing the amount of time, effort and expertise required to find and select the best possible applicant, the council has decided to contract the services of Mike Nieslanik in order to best facilitate the process. Council also will include opportunities for a variety of community members to be involved in the selection process. The following is a brief explanation of the hiring procedure we have set up.

The opening for administrator has been posted on national and state employment websites and our local Daily Record newspaper. Applicants must submit a cover letter, resume, and in addition to other prerequisites, be willing to reside within the Cañon City limits. All resumes and cover letters are being forwarded to the Colorado Work Force Center (CWFC). After the resume deadline, which is March 25, CWFC will screen the applications using a series of "Pass or Fail" questions created by the Negotiations Committee and Nieslanik in order to determine if the applicant meets the minimum qualifications. Applicants that "Pass" will be sent on to the second level.

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(On a side note, my wife, Jolene, works at the CWFC but will not be involved in the collection of cover letters and resumes, or any other part of the screening process.)

Second level applicants will be asked to answer specific questions, which will be available on canoncity.org. Applicants will have seven days, until April 4, to submit their answers. The applicants' responses will be evaluated for the presence of "key" words by a six to eight member "Screening" committee on April 7. This screening committee will be compromised of the mayor, one council member and other community members. Additionally, each resume will be evaluated and graded for education, work experience and certification strengths. The screening committee's tabulations will be used to rank the applicants.

On April 11, City Council will review the cover letters, resumes and results from the screening committee and select the top candidates for the finalist process. After council has selected and notified the finalists, we will publicly announce their names April 15.

Interviews for the finalists are scheduled for the week of April 25. They will participate in three distinct information gathering efforts; community panel interviews, city department site visitations and personal interviews with City Council in executive session. The community panel will be comprised of another group of community members and facilitated by Nieslanik. They will ask each finalist the same series of questions provided by council and will submit their evaluations for each applicant to City Council.

City Department visitations will involve each applicant visiting various department locations. These visitations are intended to provide applicants with an opportunity to get a feel for the city's operations, as well as meet department supervisors and staff. Council will then interview each applicant in an executive session.

Upon completion of this extensive process, council will again meet in executive session sometime after April 25 to review the information from their personal interviews, the community panel, and department visitations and then select a finalist. The Negotiations Committee will offer and negotiate a contract with the potentially new city administrator. Ideally, the new city administrator will start their position June 1.

It is the intention of council to hire the best person available that will be an asset to our community and guide us to a more prosperous Cañon City. We will be reaching out to various community organizations for volunteers to participate in this process. Interested parties need to be available for a couple of specific dates, such as March 24, April 7 and one day the week of April 25. If you are interested, email Scout Eckstrom at scott.eckstrom@canoncity.org, or me at jim.meisner@canoncity.org.

Jim Meisner is an elected member of Cañon City Council, At Large and appointed member of the Negotiations Committee for the City of Cañon City.

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